Good Vs Evil In Dracula

‘Dracula’, by shake& stir is a gothic horror play that explores a story of a vampire and his quest to find true love. The play focuses on themes such as; love, violence, relationships and supernatural creates. Through these themes, the performance generates extreme contrasts on stage such as light vs dark, abandonment vs entrapment and good vs evil. These contrasts manipulated the elements of drama such as space, time, place and movement. All in all this generated meaning around the themes of the play and the hidden meaning in a formerly emotionless vampire’s search for true love. This created the contrasts on stage which created an effective impact on the audience.

Light and dark were used creatively in ‘Dracula’ to create mystery and suspense

throughout the performance. Elements of drama that were used to create this contrast were dramatic focus, which generated tension of mystery, which led to some very eerie moods on stage. Which intrigued the audience and made them question the outcomes of the characters. Shake & stir effectively used dramatic conventions including; lighting, movement, sound effects and music. Lighting was used magnificently throughout the performance and highlighted the dissimilarity between light and dark. Dracula was symbolised through darkness and persuaded the audience to believe he was evil or immoral. Darkness was also used to alert the viewers that Dracula was about to appear. The lighting made a great impact on the way the audience perceived the characters. Different characters’ movement clearly depicted which side they were on and whether they were light or dark. Sound effects and music also made an impact on the audience’s perception on the characters. These auditory factors all changes the viewer’s opinion on the characters and their purpose or motives in the play. Overall, shake and stir skilfully controls the elements of drama and dramatic conventions to portray characters in a light or dark technique to create an effective contrast, which impacted the audience.

Space was used in a resourceful style that created a sense of endlessness to show the character’s entrapment and control by ‘Dracula’. Through the establishment of time with the use of space, the audience could establish the sense of entrapment. The dramatic conventions were manipulated to generate this contrast on stage were narration and mechanical staging. An example of the contrasts on stage is when Dracula stands above Jonathon to convey power and control. Narration was used to convey time and space and manipulate these elements in a way which frightens the audience. Mechanical staging was productively used to create an endless labyrinth for Jonathon to navigate through. This was especially effective when the stage spun and windows, doors and the stage all appeared in the same space. This impacted the audience as they witnessed the never-ending castle trapping Jonathon and prohibiting him from escaping. Dramatic meaning is created in this scene as the audience observes Dracula confining Jonathon to his castle and can discover themes of entrapment. By use of these conventions, the audience can view the dramatic meaning of the play. Dracula cleverly manipulated dramatic conventions and the elements of drama to create a powerful performance that delves into the themes of abandonment and entrapment.

Within the performance, shake & stir were very effective in taking advantage of the elements of drama such as tension of relationships and symbols to intensify the play and keep the audience on the edge of their seats through the portrayal of good vs evil because they were aware yet unaware of the fate of the characters.

An example of when tension of relationships dramatically represented good vs evil was with Mina and Lucy. When Lucy is controlled by Dracula, she is portrayed as the antagonist while Mina is portrayed as the protagonist. This contrast between characters, emphasizes the tension of relationships being effected by the good vs evil mentality the play possesses. The most prominent symbols include; garlic, cross, smoke, lighting and sound. These props symbolised keeping the “evil” away, when these props were not visible, Dracula was often not far away. The symbols also represented the characters trying to keep Dracula away when he wanted to find love. We can then see that he never did find true love, instead, he manipulated people into doing his bidding and believed that was love. The audience often had information about the purpose of these props while the characters did not. This resulted in the audience often knowing more than the characters did thus creating tension of relationships, between the characters and the audience. All of these elements of drama worked together to create good vs bad themes throughout the

performance.

Overall, shake & stir successfully conducted a Gothic Horror performance which used dramatic conventions to manipulate the elements of drama. This created a deeper dramatic meaning to the play in particular the underlying tones of true love. This heightened and drove the show through the generation of extreme contrasts on stage such as good vs evil, light vs dark and abandonment vs entrapment. These contrasts impacted the audience not only entertaining them but making them question the motives of Dracula.